AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - August 2023 - 20

PROFICIENT PILOT
An electrifying
flight
That time when everything went dark
BY BARRY SCHIFF / AOPA Foundation Legacy Society chairman
LAST MARCH A FRIEND and I were returning from a lunch of $150
hamburgers to our home airport, Camarillo (CMA), in a Cessna
177B Cardinal. We had begun the short trip with full tanks and
had burned only about one-fourth of our capacity when we
noticed that each fuel gauge indicated much less than it should.
There is no way, I thought, that we could have consumed so
much fuel in such a relatively short time.
Was fuel being siphoned from the tanks because of loose
or missing caps? Not likely, I thought, but I still looked out and
inspected the trailing edges of both wings to see if fuel was
flowing overboard. Nope. Not a drop. I suspected a problem
with the fuel gauges but decided to begin climbing in case we
really were losing fuel. It was not long before both fuel gauges
indicated empty, although the engine thankfully continued
to run smoothly. I then reduced power to a more economical
setting and double-checked the GPS to confirm that we were
heading directly home, which also happened to be the nearest
airport. At that point, the Garmin 530 went blank, followed soon
by the number two transceiver. It quickly dawned on me to check
the ammeter, which indicated a substantial discharge. Uh, oh.
It looked as though the alternator had failed. The transponder
was still operating, so I quickly changed the squawk from 1200
to 7600, to indicate a loss of communications. Some minutes
later, the transponder failed, and the battery died just as we
were about to enter Camarillo's Class D airspace. I continued
toward the airport hoping that the controllers there had noticed
our 7600 squawk.
Our entry into the pattern was complicated by a temporary
flight restriction close to the far side of the airport because
of an airshow at nearby Point Mugu Naval Air Station. This
necessitated some tight turning so as not to infringe on the TFR.
We soon received a steady green light, landed on Runway 26,
and received another green light clearing us to taxi.
One would think that an emergency as relatively simple as
an alternator failure during daylight VFR conditions would
not teach valuable lessons, but it did. (Such an event at
night or in IFR conditions obviously would have created much
more anxiety.)
I had always thought that an alternator failure would leave
me with a fully charged battery that would provide time to
turn off unnecessary electrical appliances and at least begin to
20
AOPA PILOT / August 2023
communicate with ATC. But this is what happens only when
you detect the failure soon after it occurs. The lesson here is
that systems instrumentation needs to be scanned frequently,
especially the ammeter. I confess to not having been doing
that, probably the result of complacency. I mean, how often do
alternators fail? This was my first.
Accelerating battery discharge was my policy to enhance
the see-and-avoid concept by operating with the landing lights
on when flying below 10,000 feet, especially in high-density
airspace and within 10 miles of an airport. Had I recognized
the alternator failure sooner, turning off those lights, and others,
would have extended battery life.
Neither I nor my friend had brought a handheld transceiver
on this flight, but I did have my cellphone. Trouble is, I did not
know the telephone number of the control tower at Camarillo,
which really would have come in handy. This gave me an idea,
and that is to store in my cellphone contacts the telephone
number for the Los Angeles Air Route Traffic Control Center,
for example. Unlike many towers, it is open 24 hours a day and
could be used to relay communications to any other ATC facility
in the country-such as a control tower. Although telephone
numbers for control towers are not published in the chart
supplement (formerly called the airport/facility directory),
numbers for all centers are listed.
I cannot recall how many years-or decades-it has been
since I had read in the Emergency Procedures section of the
Cardinal's pilot's operating handbook that " as system voltage
deteriorates [due to an alternator failure], all of the readings
in the engine instrument cluster [which includes the fuel gauges]
will drop proportionately. " If I had remembered this, I would
not have wasted so many watts troubleshooting a nonexistent
fuel problem, and the battery would have lasted a lot longer.
I do have a feeble excuse, however. Because I fly a significant
number of different aircraft types, it is difficult to remember the
system nuances and differences of each.
This is why I think that,
everything else being equal,
those who fly only one type
of aircraft might be safer than
those who fly many.
BarrySchiff.com
BARRY SCHIFF'S articles
have appeared in 116
different military and
civil aviation publications
throughout the world.
http://www.BarrySchiff.com
AOPA Turbine Pilot Magazine - August 2023

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